Jess Smart Smiley is Kickstarting a 500 copy run of his cool short story comic “A Map in the Dirt.”

Both Jess and Patrick Farley are five days from their goal (as I write this) and well within striking distance of making it (and they both deserve to). Feel free to help them over the finish line if you like what you see.

I’m intrigued by the Kickstarter phenomenon which seems to be getting a bit more traction than I would have expected. Looks like the arts community is getting increasingly comfortable with this sort of thing.

Donations have been around for a long time of course, but they’ve had a spotty history (Joey Manley once famously said “begging is not a business model” and he had a point at the time). Maybe all we needed was a central clearinghouse to make it viable.

Giving is getting easier! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been really grateful to see things like text message donations and supermarket check-out donations popping up lately.

I give more now, not because my conscience has evolved or anything but just because I’m lazy, and I know I’m not alone. It’s a great trend.

[Edit to add: Both Jess and Patrick made their goals with 3 days to spare! Congratulations to both.]

Reader Jacob Stevens Corvidae emailed me with a link to “another Kick-Ass debate”; Kevin Smith on the BBC’s Newsnight Review, discussing both the film and the comic with author Jeanette Winterson (whose novels Jacob strongly recommends) and comedian Natalie Haynes (Part 3 above being especially lively).

A few quotes taken out of context might be depressing to comics enthusiasts, but I was actually delighted to see comics’ new rules of engagement in play. The medium’s potential for great work seemed a settled question (Winterson even name-checked City of Glass), so the debate centered instead on whether they were living up to that potential and that’s a question I’d love to see raised as often as possible.

Also, I just liked everybody on the show.

In other news, our old pal Jon Lewis has brought his ’90s classic True Swamp back to life via the Web. Gotta bookmark that.

And finally, Kazu tweeted a recommendation for this little gem by Luke Pearson so I’m passing it along. An odd but stimulating read.

Shaenon Garrity has a dream in Slow Wave this week. Good excuse to link again to this delightful, long-running archive of reader-submitted dreams, drawn by Jesse Reklaw.

Meanwhile, here’s an embryonic meme that might catch on (if it can escape the Livejournal tarpits): Jason Turner’s Page 100 Project, now picked up by Rebecca Dart and others.

Not to dredge up old arguments, but one of the primary reasons I wanted to see a central, independent web currency (the online equivalent of nickels, dimes, and quarters that people could exchange quickly and easily) was that without a single currency, the natural alternative—if there was going to be any sort of paid content industry at all— was a very small number of very BIG vendors.

And this is the inevitable result.

Of course, many are advocating an end to paid content entirely and stuff like this certainly adds fuel to the fire.

Just as in a lot of political debates, though, there are days when it would have helped to have a third choice.

[link via Dirk]

Bill Griffith recently offered his Top 40 List on Comics and their Creation and it got me thinking about the influence of his generation—the RAW/Arcade generation you might call it—not only on comics but on popular culture generally.

If there’s one document that sums it up beautifully, it’s Gary Panter’s funny, screwed-up, poetic, and profound Rozz Tox Manifesto from 1980; a call for artists to infiltrate the lumbering machines of popular culture and start messing with the gears.

Through twisted masterpieces like Panter’s designs for Pee Wee’s Playhouse, or his friend Matt Groening’s long-running, society-scouring The Simpsons, it’s become clear in retrospect that these guys were (at least partially) dead serious about many of these ideas.

As of the last ten years, the idea of infiltrating mass media can seem almost redundant. The great mass of media is increasingly generated by a decentralized confederation of unaffiliated knuckleheads like you and me. But as long as there’s a hellish laugh track still running somewhere, Panter’s virus still has work to do.

It’s been almost a year since I wrote about four upcoming books I was looking forward to after seeing sneak previews.

Two of them, David Mazzuccelli’s Asterios Polyp and David Small’s Stitches have already dropped to widespread acclaim. Now Hope Larson’s Mercury is finally hitting the stands. I highly recommend it; a riveting all-ages, multi-generational mystery.

Just one to go now: Vera Brosgol’s delightful Kristyna’s Anya’s Ghost. Like my own GN, Brosgol’s book is still in progress and could take a while, but I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.

Patrick Farley is a friend, but I can say without hesitation that he’s one of the most innovative cartoonists of the last decade and the e-sheep archive (currently under reconstruction) is a treasure trove. Anything that helps him make more comics would be a very very good thing.

Tom has a comprehensive report, but I just wanted to add that I liked the man when I was a production peon at DC Comics in 1982-83, and I could tell that many of DC’s better moves at the time owed a debt to Dick Giordano’s better instincts.

Item #1

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Item #2

Uh-oh! Trevor Dodge is very kind, but this is the kind of thing that always gets me into trouble.

Item #3

Still haven’t gotten any word from Comic-Con regarding our hotel choices, so I assume there will be no choices. Hm. Guess we’re keeping our just-in-case reservations again this year at full price.

Item #4

Perhaps I should just link to a Kate Beaton comic every time I do a miscellaneous Friday post.

Item #5

Can anyone recommend a brand of ice tray that doesn’t suck?

While I’m happy to let Pixton and Bitstrips continue to trade stories of comics-making software tools in yesterday’s mammoth comments thread, let’s invite a hand drawn comic by the great John Porcellino into our hearts for a moment to restore a little balance to the universe.

Visit John’s long running King-Cat Comics site for more information on a small press legend and his sublime hand-tooled words and pictures.